Exploring Maternal Representations During Pregnancy in Normal and At‐Risk Samples: The Use of the Interview of Maternal Representations During Pregnancy

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potentiality of the Interview of Maternal Representations during Pregnancy‐Revised Version (IRMAG‐R; M. Ammaniti & R. Tambelli, 2010) in exploring maternal representations in at‐risk and nonrisk conditions. Maternal representations were assessed during the last trimester of pregnancy in 411 nonrisk women and in 255 depressed and/or psychosocially at‐risk women. The results showed a prevalence of Integrated/Balanced representations in nonrisk women and a higher frequency of Not Integrated/Ambivalent representations in at‐risk women. Data obtained confirm that the IRMAG‐R is a valid instrument for exploring maternal representation during the last trimester of pregnancy in both the absence and presence of risk conditions.     

Semantics, conceptual spaces, and the meeting of minds

We present an account of semantics that is not construed as a mapping of language to the world but rather as a mapping between individual meaning spaces. The meanings of linguistic entities are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modeled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We outline a mathematical framework, based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces, that can be used to model such a semantics. If concepts are convex, it will in general be possible for interactors to agree on joint meaning even if they start out from different representational spaces. Language is discrete, while mental representations tend to be continuous—posing a seeming paradox. We show that the convexity assumption allows us to address this problem. Using examples, we further show that our approach helps explain the semantic processes involved in the composition of expressions.     

An Emotionally Inexpressive (Type C) Coping Style Influences HIV Disease Progression at Six and Twelve Month Follow-ups

This study examined the effects of specific psychosocial factors on the progression of HIV infection in 200 HIV-1 seropositive but asymptomatic men and women. At baseline, participants' disease status was determined, and they were administered self-report assessments of coping style, social support and loneliness. Participants were classified at 6 and 12 month follow-ups as progressed or unchanged, compared to their baseline status. In logistic regression analyses, higher baseline Type C coping scores (indicating emotional inexpressiveness and decreased recognition of needs and feelings) significantly predicted progression at 6 months ( p <0.01) and 12 months ( p <0.02), but only among participants classified at baseline as CDC-A2 (between 200-499 CD4 cells/mm 3 ). In participants originally classified as CDC-A1 (CD4 cell counts > 500/mm 3 ), no psychosocial variable showed any significant relationship. Results emphasize the need to consider the disease context, as well as the interaction between biological and psychological factors in contributing to disease progression.     

How School can Teach Civic Engagement Besides Civic Education: The Role of Democratic School Climate

Civic engagement, defined as involvement in community life, is influenced by reciprocal relationships between individuals and contexts and is a key factor that contributes to positive youth development. The present study evaluates a theoretical model linking perceived democratic school climate with adolescent civic engagement (operationalized as civic responsibility and intentions for future participation), taking into account the mediating role of civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Participants were 403 adolescents (47.9 % male) ranging in age from 11 to 15 years old (mean age = 13.6). Path analysis results partially validated the proposed theoretical model. Higher levels of democratic school climate were associated with higher levels of adolescent civic responsibility; the association was fully mediated by civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Adolescents’ civic responsibility, then, was positively associated with a stronger intention to participate in the civic domain in the future.     

Prove it! The Burden of Proof Game in Science vs. Pseudoscience Disputes

The concept of burden of proof is used in a wide range of discourses, from philosophy to law, science, skepticism, and even in everyday reasoning. This paper provides an analysis of the proper deployment of burden of proof, focusing in particular on skeptical discussions of pseudoscience and the paranormal, where burden of proof assignments are most poignant and relatively clear-cut. We argue that burden of proof is often misapplied or used as a mere rhetorical gambit, with little appreciation of the underlying principles. The paper elaborates on an important distinction between evidential and prudential varieties of burdens of proof, which is cashed out in terms of Bayesian probabilities and error management theory. Finally, we explore the relationship between burden of proof and several (alleged) informal logical fallacies. This allows us to get a firmer grip on the concept and its applications in different domains, and also to clear up some confusions with regard to when exactly some fallacies (ad hominem, ad ignorantiam, and petitio principii) may or may not occur.     

Tower of London test: a comparison between conventional statistic approach and modelling based on artificial neural network in differentiating fronto-temporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease

The early differentiation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) may be difficult. The Tower of London (ToL), thought to assess executive functions such as planning and visuo-spatial working memory, could help in this purpose. Twentytwo Dementia Centers consecutively recruited patients with early FTD or AD. ToL performances of these groups were analyzed using both the conventional statistical approaches and the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) modelling. Ninety-four non aphasic FTD and 160 AD patients were recruited. ToL Accuracy Score (AS) significantly (p < 0.05) differentiated FTD from AD patients. However, the discriminant validity of AS checked by ROC curve analysis, yielded no significant results in terms of sensitivity and specificity (AUC 0.63). The performances of the 12 Success Subscores (SS) together with age, gender and schooling years were entered into advanced ANNs developed by Semeion Institute. The best ANNs were selected and submitted to ROC curves. The non-linear model was able to discriminate FTD from AD with an average AUC for 7 independent trials of 0.82. The use of hidden information contained in the different items of ToL and the non linear processing of the data through ANNs allows a high discrimination between FTD and AD in individual patients.     

The subjective duration of audiovisual looming and receding stimuli

Looming visual stimuli (log-increasing in proximal size over time) and auditory stimuli (of increasing sound intensity over time) have been shown to be perceived as longer than receding visual and auditory stimuli (i.e., looming stimuli reversed in time). Here, we investigated whether such asymmetry in subjective duration also occurs for audiovisual looming and receding stimuli, as well as for stationary stimuli (i.e., stimuli that do not change in size and/or intensity over time). Our results showed a great temporal asymmetry in audition but a null asymmetry in vision. In contrast, the asymmetry in audiovision was moderate, suggesting that multisensory percepts arise from the integration of unimodal percepts in a maximum-likelihood fashion.     

The Interaction Between Culture, Health and Psychological Well-Being: Data Mining from the Italian Culture and Well-Being Project

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of health status and cultural participation upon psychological well-being, with special attention to the interaction between patterns of cultural access and other factors known to affect psychological well-being. Data for this report were collected from a sample of 1,500 Italian citizens. A multi-step random sampling method was adopted to draw a large representative sample from the Italian population. Subjects underwent a standard questionnaire for psychological well-being [the Italian short form of the Psychological General Well Being Index (PGWBI)], and a questionnaire related to the frequency of participation to 15 different kinds of cultural activities during the previous year. The results show that, among the various potential factors considered, cultural access unexpectedly rankes as the second most important determinant of psychological well-being, immediately after the absence or presence of diseases, and outperforming factors such as job, age, income, civil status, education, place of living and other important factors. According to a semantic map generated by a powerful data mining algorithm, it turns out that different factors (among which cultural access and health status in particular) may be viewed as concurrent elements of a complex multi-causal scheme that seems to play a primary role in determining psychological distress or well-being. In particular, distress seems to be tightly connected with: living in the Southern part of Italy, average income level, living in semi-urban and urban areas, age group 46–60, presence of more than two concomitant diseases and a low level of cultural access. Well being, on the other hand, is tightly connected with: male gender, high cultural access, and absence of diseases. Some of these associations are confirmed by Principal Component Analysis.